You can try to change people’s behaviour in a number of ways. You could outlaw all possibilities but one, inform people about the effect of their choices or give people a small push towards a certain direction...

A traffic nudge must be considered safe before it is put on the roads. Short tests are however not able to assess if the risk of impact may have increased, as crashes are fortunately far too uncommon in real life.

Cities all over the world are putting up physical obstacles to curb inappropriate cyclist speeds. It however seems like there is no reason to do so at all.

There has been a lot of progress in helping drivers prevent risky situations from turning into crashes, and in reducing the complications if a crash should occur.

However, less effort has been invested in preventing risky situations from occurring in the first place.

This is the basis for MeBeSafe

MeBeSafe will develop and test solutions to nudge car drivers and cyclists towards safer behaviour in common traffic situations that carry an elevated risk. The project will also compare different ways of coaching.

The purpose is to reduce the number of “almost-crashes”, also known as risky situations. Increasing safety margins will lead to risky situations being avoided – which in turn will lead to fewer crashes in general.